


invite only

by kuro49



Series: thirty days of writing '18 [3]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU
Genre: Drabble, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-07
Updated: 2018-09-07
Packaged: 2019-07-08 07:49:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15926057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kuro49/pseuds/kuro49
Summary: Worth is weighed in splashes of red, yellow, and green. Some far redder than others.What do you know, the dead Robins club is accepting members.





	invite only

**Author's Note:**

> i always think the dead robins could have a whole lot of really great cryptic conversations together but this isn't really that even though i tried. 
> 
> prompt: falling asleep with the radio on.

 

The second Robin says to the fourth.

“I don’t know you.”

“But I know _you_.” She says, blinking slow, feeling weightless. Stephanie Brown thinks she knows what is happening and where this is going but.

“This must be hell.” Jason Todd spits out when he sees a third, the fifth Robin standing there, with his head cocked to the side, his eyes tracking them both.

“Fuck you too, Todd.”

Worth is weighed in splashes of red, yellow, and green, some far redder than others, and what do you know, the dead Robins club is accepting members.

She goes to bed with the static on, closes her eyes to see purple in her dreams and a boy beaten black and blue for starters because when has any one of them ever done a single thing in moderation. They take everything to heart. And it shows when she opens her eyes to see the same boy grown up into a man, the missing years still trapped inside of a glass case beneath the manor like it's a grave he can't climb out of.

“How is take two at life going for you?” Steph asks, sitting with her knees pulled to her chest. She is dead or she could be dreaming but does it really even matter at this point, she thinks.

“Given I’m still sticking around, it isn’t so bad.”

“Jealous,” dragging out that last _s_ until she runs out of breath but there is no ache to her chest.

“Of _me_?” Jason barks out a sharp laugh. He is laughing but there are so many things wrong here. Jason has no idea where to start. “You really shouldn’t.”

“At least you got a glass case out of it.” She says with as much mirth as she can inject into it. “I didn’t even get a t-shirt.”

Jason was Tim’s Robin, and Tim is Steph’s. She waits on him because even if she never met him, she knows him. He is the echo of a shadow she is chasing after but she knows she is getting close now. She just didn't think there would be one more to join the race.

“Joker. Black Mask. Heretic.”

Damain points at each of them like he is going down some kind of check list.

“And your point, kid?”

Damian frowns something bigger, furrows the canyon between his brows deeper. “My point, _Todd_ , is that we failed.” The words are vicious and so is the brat.

“Failures get dead.” Jason agrees, they all do. It is why they are all here. “We got what was coming to us, what’s new?”

“We do not always fail.” Damian says.

Three dead Robins out of five is still not a good track record but.

“Not all of us can be Dickie. And not all of us can be the replacement either.”

“Tim works _so_ hard.” She says, a little bit vehement because she _was_ Tim's replacement.

“And you didn’t, blondie?” Jason asks, his voice going a pitch softer like he is making the blow hurt less and Jason Todd pulling back his punches makes it all the worst. “The problem, kids, is not on us.”

Her legs stretch out, she tips backwards until she is lying on her back, there should be a sky where her eyes go but all she sees is–

“I asked Him.” She blurts out, like maybe each of them has wondered the same damn thing (they have, oh, without a doubt).

“Him?”

Steph nods, and it really doesn’t matter if that is Jason trying for empathy or Damian pretending that he isn’t listening in at all.

“I was dying and I asked him _was I ever really Robin?_ and,” she swallows, “he, Bruce."

It doesn’t have to mean anything aside from what they make of it.

"He said yes.”

She closes her eyes, leaves them to their own device. She thinks she can hear them both settling down beside her. One dead Robin next to another next to another, like they are lining up for the shot. Her eyes stay close, her breathing evens out, and her mouth curls into something that might as well be a smile. Because here she goes again, once more around the block, saving the world like it ever gave a damn about her.

It is a good thing she never asked it to.

 

 

(Jason takes down Black Mask, Damian beats the Joker with a crowbar for old time's sake.

And, Stephanie, she wakes up to music playing from the radio.)

 


End file.
